Month: June 2016

There are a handful of nonfiction books I’ve read that will always stand out–head and shoulders–above the rest. The criteria I use when judging a nonfiction book are as follows: The quality of the writing. The complexity/ingenuity of the idea behind the book. The clarity with which said complexity/ingenuity is conveyed. How badly I want…

In the world of internet-content it helps to strive for consistency. You look at some successful blogs out there, some successful YouTube channels, and they’ve all got series. I follow a dude on YouTube–Maxx Chewning. It’s a powerlifting channel, but Maxx also offers fashion advice, life advice, and just a consistently funny and unique brand…

We’re all over the map here at 1a, we bring you heartfelt memoirs, we bring you book reviews, we bring you hockey. I’d comment on the trades today in the NHL (R.I.P. Canada) but I think my colleague James has you covered there. Writing about Iceland earlier has prompted me to go and write up…

The NHL is in a state of chaos. Not really, but as a fan, there’s a lot for me to be really fucking confused excited about. P.K. Subban to Nashville in exchange for fan-favorite and captain, Shea Weber. Hall gets shipped to Jersey. One hellhole to another. Pray for him. Stamkos signs eight more years…

Enough about Brexit, the real story this week in England was its lifeless 2-1 loss to Iceland in the Round of 16 at the European Championships in France. I thought about writing about it in the immediate aftermath of the match, but I wanted to take a couple days to fully process what the world…

When I read The Trial for the first time, I was underwhelmed. I’d read all these great writers who’d praised Kafka in interviews–they claimed he was the perfect genius, a standard to aspire to, a truly brilliant writer. But when I read The Trial, pretty much a year ago on the nose, I was left feeling “meh.” Now,…

So the world has had a weekend to digest the Brexit result. Ultimately, there is just quite a bit of certainty in the UK and abroad. This is an unprecedented moment and the developments going forward will likely continue to expose the ugly underbelly this entire referendum was built upon. You would think that Britain’s Labour…

I was originally going to title this “The Rewards of Loneliness,” but that felt misleading. It is paramount to understand the distinction between aloneness and loneliness, as the former is simply describing when we’re by ourselves, while the latter is describing when we’re by ourselves and wish we weren’t. I have become a die-hard fan…

Well, the unthinkable just happened in the UK: they’ve voted to leave the European Union. Prime Minister David Cameron is set to resign. Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon is calling for a second Scottish Independence Referendum. Sinn Féin is drumming up support for Irish reunification (unlikely, guys, sorry). Worldwide markets are in turmoil. It’s chaos…

Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. Langston Hughes has established himself as one of the great American poets, and he has also become considered by many as the African American poet (arguably). Richard Wright, too, made a name for himself, mostly due to the fact that a lot of his works were considered controversial by the…

Departing from Shakespeare’s more gloomy plays, such as Hamlet and Richard III, As You Like It is refreshingly upbeat. All of the subject matter, characters, and the plot of the play is very fantastical, yet it is the very unrealistic nature of the play that makes it very relatable to arguably any member of the audience…

I began working at a new job two days ago. It is a temporary arrangement, just for the summer, but today is one of my days off. It began with a few snoozes of the alarm, though I still wanted to wake up early and be productive–to accomplish certain tasks I’d laid out for myself….